and sing hymn number 216. 216. If you from sin are longing to
be free, Look to the Lamb of God. He to redeem you died on
Calvary, Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you, Look to the Lamb of God. When Satan's imps and doubts
and fears assail, Look to the Lamb of God. You in His strength shall overall
prevail, Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you. Look to the Lamb of God. Are you weary? Does the way seem long? Look
to the Lamb of God. His love will cheer and fill
your heart with song. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you, look to the Lamb of God. Fear not when shadows on your
pathway fall, look to the Lamb of God. In joy or sorrow, Christ
is all in all, look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. Look to the Lamb of God. For He alone is able to save
you. Look to the Lamb of God. Be seated. We'll sing hymn number
326. 326. More about Jesus would I know,
More of His grace to others show, More of His saving fullness see. More of His love who died for
me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving courtesy. Nor of His love to die for me. More about Jesus let me learn,
Nor of His holy will discern. my teacher be, showing the things
of Christ to me. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving foolish seed,
More of His love to die for me. ? More about Jesus in his work
? Holding communion with my Lord ? Hearing his voice in every
line ? Making each faithful saying mine ? More More about Jesus,
oh, more about Jesus More of His saving tolerance see More
of His love who died for me Poor about Jesus on His throne,
Riches in glory all His own. Home of His kingdom sure increase,
More of His coming Prince of Peace. More, more about Jesus. More, more about Jesus. More of His saving policy. more of his love to die for me. Turn with me to the book of Jude. This will be the last message. I worked up a message today and hope it be a blessing to you. Start reading in verse 21 down
to verse 25, Jude 21 down through verse 25. Keep yourselves in the love of
God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal
life, and of some have compassion, making a difference, and others
saved with fear, pulling out of the fire, hating even the
garments spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise
God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both
now and ever. Amen. Our blessed Lord, our Father,
our God, our great God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. What a
blessing, Lord, it's to have this privilege again, together
with the people of God, together with those it's and numbered
among the living, and we're the redeemed, and we say so. We're
so thankful for the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
cleansing of our sin. And Lord, we ask for your presence
tonight and enable me to speak. And Lord, we pray again for those
who are having trouble in their bodies. Pray for Jim and Debbie. Rick
and Helen, Fran, oh Lord, have mercy on them, strengthen them,
encourage them. Lord, meet the needs of their
hearts, meet the needs of their life, meet whatever need they
have. Lord, we know that you uphold
them, you keep them, you preserve them. And Lord, they would be
here if they were able. Lord, we know that in your providence,
you send trials our way. that would hinder us from coming
to worship the true and living God. So, Lord, meet with us,
bring glory to yourself, for Christ's sake, amen. Saved by the blood of the crucified
born, Thou ransomed from sin and a new work begun. Sing praise to the Father and
praise to the Son, Saved by the blood of the crucified born. Saved! Saved! My sins are all pardoned, my
guilt is all gone. Saved, saved, I'm saved by the
blood of the crucified one. Saved by the blood of the crucified
born, the angels rejoicing because it is done, a child of the Father
joined there with the Son. Saved by the blood of the crucified
Lord. Saved, saved, my sins are all
pardoned by God. is our guide. Save, save, and
save by the blood of the crucified one. Saved by the blood of the
Crucified One The Father, He spake, and His will it was done
Great Christ of my heart and His own precious Son Saved by
the blood of the Crucified One Saved Saved My sins are all pardoned,
my fear of this all gone. Saved, saved, I'm saved by the
blood of the crucified one. Saved by the blood of the Crucified
One All hail to the Father, all hail to the Son All hail to the
Spirit, the Great Three and One Saved by the blood of the crucified
one. Saved, saved. My sins are all pardoned, my
guilt is all gone. Saved, saved. I'm saved by the blood of the
crucified Lord. I want to deal with verse 24
and 25. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy to the only wise
God our savior be glory and majesty and dominion both now and forever. Amen. Kept and faultless. Kept and faultless. There's a
multitude of reasons why we praise our Savior. Oh, He's worthy of
our praise, He's worthy of our worship. You know, a multitude
of reasons for our praise of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ. And here we find some reasons
to bless Him, to praise Him, and to thank Him. Because we're
kept faultless. Ain't that what it says? faultless. It says here, he is able to keep
you from falling. You know, we need keeping. We
really need keeping. I don't know about you, but I
need keeping. I need to be kept how I need
to be kept. You know how many ways there
are for us to fall. how many ways there is for us
to dishonor our Lord, how many things that we could say or do
that would dishonor Him, but yet He kept us, He keeps us. You know, it's easy sometimes
to fall into sin, and you know, nobody will know it but you and
God. And I tell you, sometimes we need to be kept from having
a mean spirit. You know, I've been around folks
with a pretty mean spirit and, you know, a judgmental spirit.
Everybody's wrong, but you're the only one that's right. You
know, and then, you know, fall into error. Oh, it's so easy
to fall into error. There's been so many preachers,
so many preachers that's fell into error. And the thing is,
and I've told these folks for so many years, that all it takes
is just one little thing for me to change. And you may not
even know it's happening until you believe it, in some little
error that I get into. And yet, you know, you wouldn't
know it happened until it was too late. And oh my, fall into
error? This is one that I don't want
to fall into, but I do fall in into indifference. Oh, to be
indifferent. What a sad, sad condition it
would be to be indifferent. Oh, we need to be kept from a
hard heart. Oh, my. I tell you, my heart
gets so hard sometimes that I don't know how in the world. If God
don't break it, I don't know what to do. But he's kept, he
keeps us from those things. Oh, he keeps us from all these
things that could happen to us, all these things that cause us
to fall into error, fall into some way that we're not supposed
to go. You know, he is the only one
able to keep us and I want to be kept. He can keep you from
falling. All these people here that we
read about in Jude, they fell. They fell. Paul talked about
them being led away with the error of the wicked. John said
that there were some of them led away by the error of the
wicked. But oh my, and there are so many people that My goodness,
we could do so many things. We could stumble. We could stumble
away and maybe offend some young believer, even offend some older
believer. But oh my, He's able to keep
us from falling. And I'll tell you another blessed
thing that He's able to keep us from. He's able to keep us
faithful. Do you know how, what important
it is to be kept faithful? There's so many people, you know,
that, that, you know, when, when the apostles wrote to people,
say to the faithful in Colossians, to the faithful in Galatians,
to the faithful brethren. And you know what it is to be
kept faithful? Week after week, year after year,
to be kept faithful to Christ, to keep felt faithful to his
word. to keep faithful to the brothers and sisters in Christ?
To be faithful to my brothers and sisters in other places?
You imagine what it would take, what if a preacher fell? What
if a preacher fell and everybody seen him fall? And he fell into
such a bad way that he says, listen, I wouldn't blame you
if you'd never come to get me again, hear me again, but all
to be kept faithful. Of all the things that I think
this most glorious thing, most blessed thing, and precious thing
is for God to keep us faithful. Faithful. Oh, to be faithful
to Christ, to be faithful to His gospel, to be faithful to
grace, to be faithful to the truth, to be faithful to be kept
by the power of God. Be kept faithful. There's so
many unfaithful people. There's so many people that's
unfaithful. And oh my, and with unfaithfulness,
there's one thing that I know without a shadow of a doubt,
that dishonors our Lord. Oh, to be unfaithful is to dishonor
Christ. Oh, to be unfaithful, when you
say that Christ gave you faith, That Christ kept you believing? That Christ is your surety? That Christ is your Savior? And
then be unfaithful to Him? To be unfaithful? You know how
hard it is? And I'm sure you all go through
this. Find people that's unfaithful. It's discouraging, I know, to
some of you. And it's very discouraging to
me sometimes. I get to thinking, what in the
world's the matter with people that, you know, that's unfaithful? How could you be unfaithful to
Christ? How could you be unfaithful to
the gospel? How could you be unfaithful to
meet with the brethren? To meet with the Lord's people?
Oh my. He's kept us from past sins. And oh, I'm so grateful for that.
Kept us from past sins. Keeps us from present sins. And
bless His holy name, He's gonna keep us from future sins. He's
promised to do that. He's promised to... Abraham said
it this way, He is able to perform that which He promised. He is
able to do that which He promised. He promised Abraham a child.
Was he able to give him a child? He promised Abraham that he'd
give him land. Abraham never owned a spot of
ground, but his own grave when he died. But yet, God said, Abraham
said, he's able to perform that which he promised. If he made
a promise, somebody said over there in the meeting the other
day, that there's like four or 5,000 promises in God's word.
That's, you know, it was an astronomical amount of promises. And you reckon
he's ever, ever failed? You know, I just come to my mind,
go to Joshua, keep Jude, go over the book of Joshua, find Joshua,
go to the book of Joshua and go right to the last verse of
the book of Joshua. No, let me just a minute. Well. Where is it? You know. Well, I tell you what it says.
I can't find it right now. But what it says is, there's
not one word failed of which God said. Not one word failed
of which he said. I can't find it right now, but
anyway, that's what it says. Unto him, did you find it? Where
is it at? 2145. All right. He knows what's going on. Oh, my, look at it. 21, 45. I should have remembered
that. 21, 45. Look at it. What it says there
in 21, verse 45. There fell not aught of any good
thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel. All
came to pass. I'm glad you found that. Glad
you found that. Oh my. You know, we're looking,
that's what he said over here, Jude. He said, we're looking
for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're looking for the
mercy of Christ, our Lord Jesus unto eternal life. And I'll tell
you what, when we, if we finally persevere, if we finally persevere,
It will not be the result of anything in us, anything we thought,
said, or done. If we finally persevere and cross
that River Jordan, you know it'll be because the Lord Jesus Christ
kept us. If we finally persevere and we
cross that last river, and we cross Jordan and we go over into
the promised land, I guarantee you, every step we take, it'd
be because He kept us. Kept us. Oh, I'm so glad He kept
us. Look in John chapter 10. Look
in John's gospel chapter 10. James loved these verses here.
And I know he's listening tonight, but look what he says here. You
know, in John chapter 10, verse 28. Or look at verse 27. My sheep
hear my voice. I know them and they follow me.
And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any pluck them
out of my hand. My father which gave me is greater
than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's
hand." Sounds like He's going to keep
us. Sounds like, you know, He's going to keep us. Now look over
in John 17. Look in John's Gospel chapter 17. Look down verse 12. This is our
Lord praying. He's fixing to leave the world.
But look what He says. John 17, 12. While I was with
them in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those thou gavest
me have I kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition
that the scripture might be fulfilled. I've kept them in your name,
and I've kept them, and none of them is lost. And I tell you
what, there will not be anybody that Christ died for that will
not into glory. You know, and I tell you what,
He's going to keep us. How long is He going to keep
us? When He says He is able to save to the uttermost. You know
what the uttermost is? That means to the end. Save you
to the uttermost time. To the uttermost time that there
is in this world. Not the uttermost from our sins,
but the uttermost when there ain't no time. Save us to the
uttermost all the days of our lives. That means he gonna take
us all the way to the end. He'll keep us to the end. We
may not know our name when we get so bad, but I'll tell you
one thing, he'll keep us to the end. And there will be an end
one of these days. There'll be a time when this
time shall be no more and there'll be an end. There'll be an end
to heartaches and sorrows. There'll be an end to troubles
and trials. There'll be an end to tears.
There'll be an end to sighing. There'll be an end of having
burdens. There'll be an end to everything that we've went through
in this life. There will be an end to it one of these days.
And you know what, Howard? He'll keep us to that end. And you know what? There's nobody
that don't want to be kept and knows they have to be kept. Not
one believer knows that they want to be kept and need to be
kept. And then look what else it says
here in this verse, verse 24. Now unto him that's able to keep
you from falling. Listen to what else he's going
to do. To present you faultless. you faultless." I don't know
nothing about faultless. I don't know a thing in the world
about being faultless. I do not know the first thing
about being faultless. In this flesh, in this world,
I do not know. But oh my, but he said, he's
going to present you faultless. What is, what would it, what's
it going to be like to not have any faults with you? You know? What's it going to be like to
be faultless? And listen, you know where it's
going to be counted at? It's going to be counted before
God, before Christ. To be faultless. Oh, my. Well, I'll tell you one of these
days, we're going to know someday soon. In fact, we stand that
way right now in the presence of Christ. But I'll tell you
this, nobody but Christ, that's what it says, now unto Him that's
able. to present you faultless. There's
nobody else able to present us faultless. Nobody else has the
ability. Nobody else has the power. Nobody
else has the grace. Nobody else has the mercy. Nobody
else has the ability to present us faultless but the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one who can do
that. I want to show you. Keep this again. Look with me
in Ephesians chapter 4. 5, excuse me, Ephesians chapter
5. Look what he said here. In verse 26, Ephesians 5, 26. He's talking about Christ loving
the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify it.
cleanse it with a washing of water by his word. Now listen
to this, that he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having
a spot, not having a wrinkle, nor any such thing, but that
we should be holy and without blemish before him. Oh my goodness, without blemish? Look over in Colossians now. Go over in Colossians chapter
one, look down verse 22, to present you faultless. These things, just, I don't know how to think about
them other than know it by faith, by faith, we believe these things
by faith. But look what he said in verse 22 of Colossians chapter
one, He hath now reconciled in the
body of His flesh through death to present you, always present,
holy and unblameable and unreprovable in His sight." Over there he said, holy, unblameable,
unreprovable, without spot, without blemish, without a wrinkle? And
here he says he's going to, and every one of us present. I present. I do this. I'm the one to present
you this way. I do it. And so now he says,
I present you faultless. Oh my. I tell you, we even now,
I tell you, if we feel the effects of sin, we all feel the effects
of sin. You can't come to a service without
feeling the effects of sin. And we feel the effects of sin
now, and yet He will present us faultless. With all the struggles
we have now, He will yet present us faultless. That's God. You know, everybody that's in
heaven will be faultless. There's no sin going to enter
that place. Ain't nothing without blemish going to enter that place,
with a blemish. Look in Revelations 21. Verse
27. You know, none in heaven but those
that are faultless. Everybody there is going to be
faultless. Revelation 21, 27. And there
shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, Neither
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie, but these are
the people going to be there, they which are written in the
Lamb's book of life. Oh, my. I tell you what, when
we get to glory, everybody's going to be falling. You know,
here we are, we're sitting right now. I don't know how y'all feel,
I feel like I'm a mess, you know. But I'll tell you what, Christ
says, I'm going to present you faultless. Now, now I'm going
to do that. Now he that's able to keep you.
And back over in our text, our final preservation, look what
he says. Now unto him that's able to keep
you from falling, to present you faultless. Now listen to
this, in the presence, before the presence of His glory with
exceeding joy." He says He's going to do it to bring us into
His presence, to bring us into His presence. And you know what? He's going to do it with exceeding
joy. Everyone for whom He died, all
of them, He's going to have exceeding joy when He brings us all and
presents all of His church, everyone for whom He died, before His
Father and before His own presence with exceeding joy and before
the presence of His glory. To be in the presence of His
glory and Him have joy about it, exceeding joy about it. Oh. Oh, before his glory. Oh, to
bless him, to praise him. And it says, you know, that,
you know, here we have eternity side by side. We have now, and
then we have eternity. We have the present, and then
we have the future. We have where we are now, and
we have where we're going. Eternity side by side. Oh, my. I tell you what, look what else
it says here now. Talk about keeping you faultless,
keeping you faultless, keeping you. And let me ask you a question. How long has he kept you? How long has he kept you? 10
years? 20 years? Has he kept you for 20
years? Huh? Has he kept you for 30 years? 30 years? 30 years? Has he kept you for 40? 40 years? Oh, to be kept 40 years? 50? Has he kept you for 50 years? If he's able to keep you one
day, he's able to keep you. Year after year after year after
year. You know, this time last year,
we were camped. Here we are now, we're camped.
January rolls around, we'll start a new year, and if God lets us
live, we'll still be camped. You don't get up in the middle
of the night and say, boy, Lord, please, you know, keep me, because
he said, I'm going to keep you. I'm going to keep you. And oh,
my, there's been people he's kept for 60 years. Oh, my. And all I think about all my
preacher brethren that's already gone home. Oh, gone home. Henry Scott preached for 50 years,
50 something years. God kept them faithful. God kept
them true. God kept them all the way to
the end till they drew their last breath. And now they've
presented faultless. And Christ has exceeding joy
over them. Oh my. If the Lord lets me live, 75, I'm 75. If he lets me live till I'm 80,
I'm gonna be kept five more years. If he lets me live till I'm 85,
I'm gonna be kept for 10 more years. And I know right now that I can't
keep myself and I can't keep anybody else. But now unto him
that's able to keep you from falling. and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." Now look
what he says here. And then he goes on. What a doxology
this is. To the only wise God. You know, there's lots of gods
in this world, but he's the only wise God. He's the only wise
God. And listen to what else he says
about Him. Our Savior. Our Savior. Give Him glory, majesty, dominion. I mean that gives Him all authority,
all power, and the power both now and forever. And then He says, Amen. Let it
be so. Let it be so. God is too wise
To do wrong and too good to be unkind. And I heard somebody say the
other day, and I remember Scott saying this, if we had the power
of God, we'd change everything. But if we had the wisdom of God,
we'd change nothing. You know, to be kept, be kept
faultless, presented faultless. Our blessed, blessed Savior,
thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. How we
thank you and bless you for your great mercy, for your precious
word that tells us, tells us what you've done for us now and
have for so many years, so many decades, so many decades. You've kept us and kept us and
kept us. And Lord, someday, in the very,
very near future, you'll present us faultless before your own
presence and before your own glory, and you'll be having joy
in doing that for us. Father, bless these dear saints
now. Keep them. Preserve us and preserve
us all that we may bring glory to your holy name all the days
of our life. who ask these things in our Savior's
name, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Well, I tell you,
I don't even know what to say.
I know it's true. I know it's real. And let me
say this before you go home. I'm sure sorry, you know, that
I didn't have nobody here